IE 7 - 9 now show a simplified menu, top of page.
On other browsers, first time visitors to the site with mouse-controlled devices should get the Desktop Menu (flags) by default or, with touch-operated devices, the Mini Menu (mobile). In either case, the alternative menu can be chosen, if preferred, by clicking the appropriate icon, and it will persist (thanks to a cookie) unless another choice is made.
If the site is viewed on smaller devices (less than 400 CSS pixels), only the Mini Menu will be available.

Remains a work in progress. Don't hesitate if there are still issues, suggestions...

Nah! I'm using IE9 and the whole page looks slightly larger now ( such that it no longer fits across the screen and there is a small horizontal scroll) and some of the fields at the top now overlap. There is a menu at the very top (above the clock) starting about 1/3 of the way across the screen and consisting of rectangular grey boxes that are not in keeping with the style of the rest of the page and 'News' overlaps to a second line. There is no slidey menu on the left side of the screen any more.

Would you like to remind us all again why you decided to bugger about with the menus and pages in the first place? I thought they worked Ok before.

I use Chrome on a tower PC and it worked fine before the change and after. However, about 4 days ago it just brought up a section, like the page had been magnified, so I started to access using Android on a cheap tablet I have and it works fine on that.

Anybody admit to changing anything since my post yesterday, or have GCHQ finished installing the snoopware on all our machines now? Everything looks fine again now and the menu is back on the left. I never touched nuffin, honest.

No, but I did...
And I'm afraid the improvement was short lived.
The problem is that although the menu works fine on all browsers so far tested, including those on mobile devices, Internet Explorer 9 and earlier versions fail to display correctly. To make life a little harder, IE 9 messes up in different ways on Vista and Windows 7 (which I guess you're using?) My workaround for IE 9 and earlier is the bland top menu you're seeing. If I can find a better solution, I'll implement it.

In short, I had no choice, as the increasingly buggy and hack-prone Adobe Flash plugin (upon which the old menu depended) is being phased out and is no longer readily available on many mobile browsers.

aristomatic wrote:about 4 days ago it just brought up a section, like the page had been magnified

I suspect that happened while I was tweaking something. Can you confirm it's OK now?

I've had another peek at this. You should now get the default desktop menu (without the mini menu option) on IE 9 - not working very smoothly, but usable, I guess. What's more, currently it only works for the Forum. On other areas of the site IE 9 (like previous versions) still get the makeshift top menu.

By the way Bod, what operating system are you on? If you can upgrade to the latest version of the browser you'll notice an improvement.